If I could change anything about the criminal justice system it would be policing. Specifically I would like to take a stance against police corruption. Police corruption has been an issue for decades and comes in many forms. Police corruptions forms can be lack of integrity in the field of work, using leadership positions in a negative way, falling into negative habits due to work environments and a negative police subculture can all contribute to corruption in policing. When it comes to being a police officer the job can be overwhelming, nerve wracking, and high pressure and insanely stressful, however, it is important that an officer avoid compromising his or her integrity in the field of work. When hiring new officers the department …show more content…
In the policing profession the work environment needs excellence. A single incident such as mike brown’s case, Rodney king’s case and Kathryn Johnston’s case can send a shockwave across the nation and have a devastating effect. In such a time as now that police misconduct is so strongly intolerated, it is important that officers remain sharp, excellent and integral in their work, along with leaders providing their best effort to minimize stress in the work environment as well as provide positive support to the officers. In today’s policing the work is driven by numbers, numbers of arrest, numbers of weapons recovered, number of drug bust, and numbers of tickets given out, such quotas having to be met can lead to less integrity in the work place. The lack of integrity and high stress factors that are combined in the work environment can lead to corruption among police in their work. Work environments such as stated above can lead to officers and their leaders to be more susceptible to corruption, an example being the NYPD. A former NYPD employee admitted to to planting drugs on innocent bystandards in an attempt to meet monthly quotas. In an interview conducted by the Huffington post the former employee revealed that arrest were made during illegal “stop and frisk” searches, in which the officers planted small baggies of various drugs on the innocent people they stopped. In the same token the officer revealed that it was the departments heads otherwise known as the leaders were threatening street officers with termination of their jobs if they did not comply with these request. Bad leadership, lack of integrity, and stressful work environments have such negative impacts that in the eyes of the public trust is lost. When the people you swore to serve and protect don’t trust you, it can lead to a negative moral of
In a recorded conversation, Williams told Adams he could protect his drug operation, but he needed to bring his partner in on it. In 1994, Davis and Williams provide Adams police protection. The informant Terry Adams delivered about 7.5 kilograms of cocaine to a FBI undercover agent, each officer was paid $500 per kilo. May 4, 1994 two cops, Adams and undercover FBI agent Juan Jackson posed as a New York drug dealer named ‘JJ” he made everyone strip to show that they were not wired.” The cops agreed to hire a uniformed New Orleans police officer to protect the large quantities of cocaine for three days. Davis recommended
As a newly promoted Lieutenant in charge of jail operations in the Houston Police Department (HPD), there are several critical issues regarding the jail environment that require immediate attention such as, inadequate conditions of confinement, health care, security measures, and sexual misconduct between correctional officers and inmates. The aforementioned issues are a controversial topic all across the U.S. and it usually attracts media attention and creates negative publicity towards the Department of Corrections. A lieutenant of jail operations is responsible for his or he shift and oversees multiple areas of the jail facility. Responsibilities of a jail lieutenant includes but is not limited to the following: (1) coordinate shift activities;
Serve and Protect are common words associated with police officers, however some law enforcement officers taint the honor and integrity of the job. Police Corruption is a serious problem affecting nearly every city across the country and world. Curbing police corruption is a tall order; however, improving the recruitment and training process and internal controls can bring this issue to an abrupt stop.
In the interviews Wood (2015) and Balko (2015), medically retired Police Officer and former Marine, Sargent Michael Wood discusses his time on the Baltimore Police Department and the driving factors to police corruption that is drawn from his experience. Sgt. Wood was a police officer for 11 years and for the first four years he was assigned to a majority black neighborhood. His second assignment was in a majority white neighborhood and during this assignment Sgt. Wood formulated an opinion on the police policies that drove corruption among good men and women (Wood, 2015). Although Sgt. Wood identifies many fascinating issues within the Baltimore Police Department, I will focus attention on his insight into the Baltimore police culture and
With matted hair and a battered body, the creature looked at the heartless man outside the cage. Through the dark shadows you could only see a pair of eyes, but those eyes said it all. The stream of tears being fought off, the glazed look of sheer suffering and despair screamed from the center of her soul, but no one cared. In this day in age I am ashamed to think that this is someone's reality, that this is an accurate description of a human being inside a Canadian women's prison . Exposing the truth behind these walls reveals a chauvinistic, corrupt process that serves no greater purpose. The most detrimental aspect of all is society's refusal to admit the seriousness of the situation and take responsibility for what has happened.
There are several ways police departments can take to reduce police corruption. The three areas I think should change are the training officers in how to diminish abuse, improving the personal character of officers, and incentives program. The Los Angeles Sheriff Department is the largest law enforcement agency in the United States under the leadership of Chief Leroy D. Baca, now retired. The Sheriff Department has about 18,050 employees with an annual budget of $2.5 billion, according to http://sheriff.lacounty.gov. The Sheriff’s Department serves the Superior Court of Los Angeles County and also manages the county jails.
This news article addresses the issue of the mass amount of kids in jail and who is most likely to be in jail. In this article, the author uses many key statistics of the amount of colored kids and teens in jail. In the beginning, the article starts with the amount of kids in jail then proceeds to tell us the percentage of colored kids versus the percentage of non colored kids in jail. Next, it focuses on the amount and increase of people that have been incarcerated just in the past few years and why they have most likely been sentenced. Lastly, the author then states what actions have been taken to stop this and mentions the committees that have formed to help those who have been targeted by this issue. The intended audience is parents who
Police corruption, misconduct, and brutality in the United States have been issues since the creation of watch system in the United States (Grant& Terry, 2012). New policy and training is now in place and the corruption, misconduct, and brutality has gone down since the beginning of policing. This is a huge issue that impacts all police organizations in the United States. The extent of police corruption, misconduct, and brutality is hard to track in the United States. A lot of these crimes go unreported, tossed aside, or the officer responsible gets little or no punishment. This is huge issue in the United States criminal justice system.
Within our police system in America, there are gaps and loopholes that give leeway to police officials who either abuse the authority given to them or do not represent the ethical standards that they are expected to live up to by society. Because of the nature of police work, there is a potential for deterioration of these ethical and moral standards through deviance, misconduct, corruption, and favoritism. Although these standards are set in place, many police officers are not held accountable for their actions and can easily get by with the mistreatment of others because of their career title. While not every police abuses his or her power, the increasingly large percentage that do present a problem that must be recognized by the public as well as those in charge of police departments throughout our country. Police officials are abusing their power and authority through three types of misconduct known as malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance and these types are being overlooked by management personnel who rarely intervene even though they know what is happening. Misconduct is wrong because it violates rights and causes people to be wrongly accused of crimes or be found not guilty and set free when they are still an endangerment to other people. The public needs to be educated on what is happening in the police system in hopes that someone will speak out to protect citizens from being violated by police officers.
Bibliography Why Good Cops Go Bad. Newsweek, p.18. Carter, David L. (1986). Deviance & Police. Ohio: Anderson Publishing Co. Castaneda, Ruben (1993, Jan. 18). Bearing the Badge of Mistrust. The Washington Post, p.11. Dantzer, Mark L. (1995). Understanding Today's Police. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. James, George (1993, Mar. 29). Confessions of Corruption. The New York Times, P.8, James, George (1993, Nov. 17). Officials Say Police Corruption is Hard To Stop. The New York times, p.3. Sherman, Lawrence W(1978). Commission Findings. New York Post, P. 28 Walker, J.T. (1992). The police in America, p.243-263, chp. 10, Walker, Samuel (1999).
Police corruption and misconduct come apparent in many different forms. A basic definition for police corruption is, when an officer gets involved in offenses where the officer uses his or her position, by act or omission, to obtain improper financial benefit. The main reason for such corruption is typically for personal gain, such as bribery. Police abuse of authority occurs in three different general areas such as physical abuse, psychological abuse, and legal abuse. Physical abuse is such abuse where one uses excessive force or physical harassment. The psychological abuse occurs through disrespect, harassment, ridicule, excessive stops, or intimidation. Finally, legal abuse is abuse that occurs during unlawful search and seizure or manufacturing evidence (Pollock, 2012). One source describes police corruption in eight different ways. They include: corruption of authority, kickbacks, opportunistic theft, shakedowns, protection of illegal acts, the fix, direct criminal acts, and internal payoffs (Roebuck & Barker, 1974).
According to A Report issued by the Justice Policy Institute, it showed that in 2002 the number of African American males in prison have grown to five times the rate it was twenty years ago (“Prison”). Many have speculated that reasons the population of African Americans in prison are so high is that the Justice System is corrupted and shows that Racism is alive and well. In some cases they may have been guilty, but there should never be a case were a citizen was striped from their rights and accused of a crime they didn’t commit or was protecting themselves from being killed. The Justice System is corrupted towards the African American race because they are given poor legal representation, death penalty with insufficient evidence and longer sentences than any other races that statistics can show.
It is often said that power brings corruption, but in reality it is an individual’s lack of character, self-discipline, and integrity that leads to corruption. Law enforcement can bring many temptations on the job, and maintaining an up most level of personal integrity can often times be very difficult. The very nature of the job surrounds officers with all of the bad things that society, produces. There can be an endless amount of training and rules put into place to try and deter officers from committing unethical acts, but in the end it really just comes down to the specific individual and their willingness to do the right thing.
Police corruption is a nationwide problem that has been going on for many years. Not only is corruption a problem on our own U.S. soil, but police practices of corruption go as far east as Europe and Asia. Many studies, polls and examinations were taken to find out how exactly what the general publics’ opinions of the police are. Officers receive a lot of scrutiny over this issue, but for good reason.
The majority of peace officers are committed to the profession they chose. They view the career as a calling, a dedication to perform a public service to their community. Being a police officer requires one to continually strive for perfection, but there is no such thing as a perfect cop. What makes a good cop turn bad? Many factors can attribute to police corruption, but the question that should be asked is if it can be stopped. Although police agencies have progressed greatly from its beginning, police corruption is the black mark that will forever leave a stain of embarrassment within an organization.